


The Whole Being Dead Thing (AKA O. Bettle Bettle)

by LealAlchemical



Category: Septimus Heap - Angie Sage
Genre: Bad end au?, But it's funny, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Ghosts, Humor, I don't know how to tag this, More Discord Shenanigans, cw death, ghost au, is that a thing?, low-key angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28002552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LealAlchemical/pseuds/LealAlchemical
Summary: Ok, but what if Beetle died during Darke with the whole Hermetic Chamber situation. Like, dead. There's a ghost. What crimes will he commit?Basically it's about the Manuscriptorium's friendly Positive Poltergeist. Started on the Discord and the idea is rapidly evolving into a multichapter fic spanning all the way to PathFinder. Hey guys, thanks for the enabling.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 13





	1. I'm blue (da ba dee ba da die)

**Author's Note:**

> Major warning, it doesn't describe how he dies but it's oxegen deprivation and I have a terrible sense of humor and don't know when to stop. Basically, it gets real dark and if that's not your thing that's all right. 
> 
> I'm also very sorry. Like I said I don't know when to quit.

Beetle hadn't quite processed what he was looking at yet. He was standing behind somebody. They were sitting, slumped, in a chair and he had the sudden suspicion that the person in front of him was a corpse. When he walked around to see the person's face, he stopped.

Something about the boy with his curly black hair and grey scarf and blue jacket was…. familiar in a bad way. A very, very bad way.

He was certainly dead, his lips blue, his skin so pale to almost be translucent, he was very clearly not breathing. 

Beetle took a deep breath and like one of Ephaniah's machines something clicked into place in his brain, his thoughts started whirring, and he had (what he considered to be) a serious question.

_Can I throw up when I'm dead? Can ghosts throw up? I’m dead. I’m looking at my own corpse._

It felt like his internal organs had dropped the height of the Wizard Tower, and despite his newly acquired status of ghost, he felt vaguely as though somebody had clubbed him in the head with a mallet.

He was staring down at his own corpse. He didn't know how long he was there and it felt like years but couldn't have been longer than a couple of minutes before he could hear the sound of somebody taking down the **Seal** in the hallway. The ever-present hum of **Magyk** starting to fade. 

At least the silence was better than the humming from the **Things** touch against the **Seal**.

He looked at his own hands, their blue-tinted fingers glaring back at him. He didn't know humans could turn that shade of blue and he certainly wished he didn’t know that. He had liked blue once. He wasn't sure he did now. Which was a shame because he was still wearing his Admiral's jacket and he wasn’t sure how clothes would work now.

He could feel when the shield went down fully more than he could hear it, and when he looked over he almost felt like he was suffocating again. It was a stupid thought since he was pretty sure breathing was a lie now, but it didn’t change the aching tightness in his chest.

Marcia stood at the entrance, Septimus and Jenna close behind. All three wore different expressions of concern.

_Gods, why all three of them? Why couldn't Marcia have come in alone?_

Septimus was already rushing over to him, nearly passing through Beetle's ghost. 

"Beetle!" 

Septimus was shaking the body's shoulder now. Beetle watched his friend withdraw, eyes wide and hands shaking.

“He’s cold, Really cold…..”

Marcia was trying to convince him that a successful **Suspension** would mean he’d be cold while digging through those damned liquorice boot laces in the siege drawer. She was clearly trying to keep herself calm as well as Septimus and Jenna.

Beetle really didn't want to watch this. But he didn’t feel like he really had a choice.

He watched as she gave up the search for the charm and instead grabbed his body and gently lifted him into an upright position. His body moved strangely, like a puppet with the strings cut.

"Beetle." She shook him gently. "Beetle, you can come out now." her voice was very calm and firm. 

Time seemed sticky and slow as she looked over her shoulder at her companions, and when she turned back she had a grim expression.

He watched as Marcia inhaled and cast her spell, pink mist flowing over his body and coalescing over his mouth and nose. 

Some part of him wondered if it would work, the other was more reasonable and acknowledged that it was a general rule that once you are staring at your own corpse that things aren't getting much better.

As he expected, nothing happened. As time dragged on Jenna started a series of quiet sobs, Septimus was shaking and staring silently into the middle distance. Marcia watched as the spell faded. The look on her face showed that she blamed herself and a level of grief that Beetle hadn’t expected. Marcia put an arm around her apprentice and the princess and gently led them from the room. 

Beetle wanted to scream, to cry out, to do something, but every time he tried nothing happened. He just stood there, feeling just as separate from his ghostly form as he did from his body. Unable to move until long after people had been in to move his body away. He’d managed to pull himself together enough to look away then. The limp way it moved, the thoughts of people touching him but not… him. It left him feeling cold and strange and alone.

He figured he would be in for a year and a day of dead silence, but soon enough the **Pick** for the new Chief Hermetic Scribe happened. When all the scribes had left the Hermetic Chamber, Marcia hesitated at the exit. In a tone quieter than Beetle had thought the ExtraOrdinary Wizard was physically capable of she whispered,

"I'm sorry. I didn't know…. I- "

Marcia's breath was shaky, her emotions more raw and open than Beetle had ever seen on her face. He was surprised, he had only ever tried to help. He wasn’t nearly as close to her as Septimus or even Jenna. But the look on her face made him want to say something, anything.

"It's not your fault. I’m not upset. I'm not even really mad at Merrin. I'm just……. Kind of bored. Maybe a little cold? Is that normal?" He finally managed to form words.

She didn't seem to hear him and he sighed, glancing over to the **Pot** containing the scribes pens.

" I'll keep an eye on it for you. I remember reading it used to keep just one pen in the **Pot** and just kind of spat out the others. Then it changed. Weird, right?"

Marcia still didn't respond. She was clearly trying to suppress her guilt underneath a studied mask before leaving. Beetle wondered if she'd hear him scream but decided otherwise.

If all she heard was him scream that probably wouldn't make her feel any better. Instead, he resolved to make sure that the moment someone could hear him that he'd find a way to talk to her. To let her know that he didn’t blame her. Simple.

Long after she left he wandered over to the **Pot.** It wasn't doing anything that he could see. How long until it chose? A bit later it shook violently, and there was a sharp smell like burning pumpkin and hot metal. A smell that reminded him unpleasantly of _that_ night.

He yelped as a pen went flying out of the pot and passed through his right eye. Nothing followed. The pen belonged to Lauren. One of the older scribes, but incredibly unambitious and she tended to prefer quietly following orders rather than taking charge. Keeping her head down.

He didn't dislike her, but he also felt that she was very far from the best option. That something wasn’t right and the smell of **Darkeness** didn’t help matters

His money would have been on Romilly. She was a fast thinker, good at improvising, and might have had the best handwriting if the bunch.

While handwriting may not have been a requirement but was certainly a bonus.

Also, Romilly was kind. She'd keep the Manuscriptorium running smoothly and be able to deal with the assortment of Wizards and other customers who would try to push her around while also being a smooth enough talker to bring them around to listening.

Beetle considered the pen, considered the P **ot** , and stared quietly at his blue-tinged fingers.

It wouldn't hurt to try, would it?

\-----------------------------------------------

In all honesty, it did kind of hurt. But he focused everything he had on just tipping the pot over and scooping out every pen but Romilly's. He finally tipped the pot back up into proper position in the center of the table and flopped onto the floor beside the table.

He registered vaguely when the morning came and definitely noticed when the scribe who came in to pick up the **P** **ot** stepped through his chest (and then promptly stepped back while shaking their foot), but otherwise he was a bit dead to the world.

A thought that would have made him chuckle if it didn't feel like his head was floating away. He’d need to work on that. It wasn't a good feeling.


	2. Please just get some therapy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's a long story, and probably the bane of Jillie's existence. Or, well it was… Anyway it became a joke for a bit to pretend to work but just… EEEEEE instead of doing anything productive. Anyway, Beetle started it so that's not a coincidence."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so. Still angst, and shit's still a bit grim. But, if you've read chapter one the worst is over.

Beetle was beginning to understand why it was considered rude to remind ghosts they were dead. Almost every early visit had ended in tears and just reminded him that there was nothing he could do.

To borrow a phrase from an aunt somewhere in the family, bless his heart but Septimus really needed to get a hobby. He didn't mind the company but one-sided conversations where Septimus occasionally broke into tears was getting a bit old. At least when Jenna was there she broke up the monologue, trying to crack jokes

Alther came by every Tuesday, or at least he thought it was every Tuesday. He tried but was usually a bit distracted. Beetle appreciated his chance to talk, but the two were so different it usually just turned into "Please tell Marcia I don't hate her."

"I can't believe I died on the same day as  _ Jillie Djinn," _

"Ok, somebody needs to tell Sep that he needs help and I can't give that to him."

"How's cleanup going? I heard Ephaniah was ok."

"Has anybody talked to mum yet? Can someone let her know that…. Well, I'm not ok but I'm ok considering what happened."

"Was that a fucking cat?"

It was a cat, swiftly followed by Foxy who scooped it up and handed it off to someone outside. He stuck his head back in.

"Hey, sorry about that. Some mad woman is insisting that 'sweet little kitten' is just a bit misguided and wanted a charm to help. Hope it didn't uh…" 

Foxy seemed a bit at a loss for words.

"Go through you? Or something? Sorry, I have no idea how Septimus does this. I know you've got to be there, especially after the paper incident, but it feels really strange to talk to what seems to be an empty space."

Beetle laughed at that. He didn't quite know when his thoughts wandered off and Alther left but Beetle lay sprawled on the floor (as usual) and reminisced.

\------------------------------

A week into ghosthood Romilly, Foxy, and Partridge knocked on the doorway (seriously, what was he going to do? Tell them to go away?) and entered the room as silently as a funeral procession. Foxy set the pen Beetle has given him on the table, Romilly placed down some paper and thoughtfully weighed it down, and Partridge carefully placed a neatly sharpened pencil.

"So uh, Sep said you might not be able to do much yet but fun fact, Jillie died on Marcia's couch and has been visible ever since…" Foxy started.

"So step up your game-"

Romilly punched Partridge in the arm, hard. He shut up suddenly.

"ANYWAY," Romilly continued. "It won't hurt anything, and it seems like the best idea. So uh…"

"Have fun?" Foxy finished.

"Thanks guys. Wish you could hear me." Beetle replied from his usual position on the floor.

"Man, this is worse than when he was at Larry's," Partridge mumbled as he walked around the table.

Beetle watched the scribe's feet get closer, wondering if he'd have the same reaction that the previous person had.

As he was  **Passed Through** , Partridge jumped back like he'd been shocked. Staring wide-eyed right at Beetle.

"Guys, it's really cold there. Like, really  _ cold _ ."

Foxy looked at where Partridge was staring, 

"O. Beetle Beetle are you on the  _ god damn floor? _ "

Beetle ignored the unpleasantness of being  **Passed Through** and swiped a hand through Partridge's boot. He lept back and swore, earning another punch in the arm from Romilly.

Beetle was sitting up now, truly smiling and laughing in a way he hadn't since he had been alive.

After they had filed out of the room, Beetle sat down at the table and stared at the tools set in front of him. The pencil was smart, the pen had no ink but he supposed it was probably just there for moral support.

It took probably 20 minutes and a fair amount of swearing to pick up the pencil. And then another 10 after he got too excited and dropped it.

The next hurdle was that his hands, the pencil, and his thoughts were not cooperating. And as he surveilled the scribbles that were an attempt at  _ "Hi, how are you?" _ He sighed in dismay.

It was hard, but eventually, he had filled the first page with phrases, quotes, messy doodles, his name over and over again, and several lines of EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

All of which was an incomprehensible chicken scratch. It was on the same level as the general  _ "oh look, a ghost wrote on my wall"  _ scribble drivel. He was starting to put a bit more faith in those claims as it turns out. Writing without a physical form was a bit like sledding on bare cobblestone.

Not fun, hard to control, and very tedious.

\--------------------------------

Beetle snapped out of his thoughts. Of course, a young scribe had gone in as a dare later that day, had seen the paper, proceeded to pass through him, screamed at the sudden cold, and Beetle was pretty sure he heard the kid thud off the first wall in the hallway. Romilly and Septimus came in later, the new Chief Hermetic Scribe excitedly pointing at the paper.

"He's definitely hanging around. It's hard to make out but we have some jokes in the Manuscriptorium and I'm pretty sure those are E's."

"Ees?" Septimus looked confused.

"It's a long story, and probably the bane of Jillie's existence. Or, well it was…Anyway, in order to keep her from just assigning busy work whenever we finished early we’d just start filling a paper with EEEEEE until she went back to her office. It was Beetle’s idea and even though it stopped working after a while, it stuck around."

\-------------------------------------

Now he could roughly tell the time by Alther's Tuesday visits and the paper left on Friday that would be checked on Monday.

He wasn't always alone, Septimus and Jenna were frequent visitors as well as an assortment of Manuscriptorium staff. 

Once, his mum had come in. She had obviously been crying and she told him about "those blasted Heaps" and claimed to start to understand why he liked them so much. 

She also continued on to mention he didn't need to worry about her, that between Marcia and the Heaps she'd had to argue with them to stay in the Ramblings.

Which the Heaps understood, Marcia didn't really but had mentioned that if she ever needed something just to stop by the Tower.

She grew silent for a time and Beetle wished he could hug her. Instead, he started crying.

\-------------------------

"I thought people couldn't feel when they passed through ghosts? They always seem to notice me though…"

Alther regarded him for a moment,

"You died cold and have been moping for a good long while, so that can affect things."

"So if I strongly felt that Septimus needed to talk to more living people and ghost-slapped him, would he get the message?"

Alther laughed softly at that, "Probably not, seeing as I've said that to his face before and he just pretended not to hear me."

"Huh."

\---------------------------------------

Septimus was in full swing now. Again, Beetle didn't mind and was overjoyed that his friend came to see him so often. But Sep needed to open up to somebody who was alive, or at least somebody who could respond.

Beetle found himself floating off inside his own head for a moment before shaking himself out of it and absentmindedly saying,

"Hey, sorry. I missed that last part, can you repeat it?"

Septimus froze, looking around suddenly.

"Hey, you good? You look like you saw a ghost."

His friend's head practically swivelled over to where Beetle was sitting against the wall of the Chamber.

"Beetle?"

There was a fragile sound to his voice now, something on the verge of cracking. Beetle was up and standing by him immediately.

"Yeah. What's up?"

Septimus jumped slightly and turned to Beetle's voice. Tentatively breaking out into a smile. Beetle was almost glad his friend couldn’t see him. If the bloodstains on Alther’s robes and some of the more gruesome ghosts around the Castle were anything to go by, he really didn’t want to remind his friend of that day.

"Not- not too much? How about you?"

"Well, I’d say that things have been quiet as the grave as of late."


	3. Don't do things by halves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter than my usual, but felt like a satisfying way to end the chapter. Same warnings as usual for depression mixed with humor. Sorry.

Beetle wasn’t a hundred percent sure on the specifics, but he knew Alther had somehow been banished. He knew it had to do with Tertius Fume (which made him actually feel angry for the first time in a while), and knew (from a brief conversation with Septimus) that Marcia felt it was her fault.

He also knew what Septimus was planning on doing to get Alther back.

As a result of the sudden lack of visits, Beetle was starting to lose all track of time. Paper was still left, but he rarely chose to use it. Sometimes he would get to talk to Foxy and some of his other friends. But it was awkward at best and he was starting to get bored. So, without much worry as to upsetting anybody Beetle decided it might be about time to practice  **Appearing** despite his reluctance.

Not that he had much better to do, right?

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Weeks later, things had started to return to normal. Months after his abrupt transfer to ghosthood Beetle felt he might have a good idea on how to show himself to others, but he wanted to make sure his  **appearance** wouldn’t be more distressing than it had to be for Septimus and Jenna. 

It’d be bad enough, how he looked, without  **Appearing** as a bunch of floating bits and pieces. So, in between laughing fits at the fate of Jillie Djin and Marcia’s couch (banishment to the hallway until the following months when the Spirit would finally be free to roam.) Beetle had once again laid himself out on the floor while attempting (and often failing) to bring his entire self somewhere into the visible spectrum at once.

It was during this he heard the muttering from outside in the hallway, but he thought nothing of it. He was so close-

Somebody ran in, somebody let out a strangled yelp, and then the figure took off like a shot. Beetle sat up, abandoning his attempt to appear. He could hear the young scribe panicking in the dark hall and being shushed by his friends.

From what he gathered, the scribe was new. The others figured the Hermetic Chamber was the best idea for a hazing ritual since it lacked the risk of injury like the Wild Book Store. The scribe they sent in was on the verge of tears, “ _ he looked like a drowned man or somebody that froze. He’s horrid pale and he-” _

Beetle sighed, perhaps a bit louder than he meant to and the scribe fell silent.

“Hey guys, sorry about the fright just uh… yeah. Anyway, please don’t forget that letting unauthorized and unapproved personnel into the Hermetic Chamber is essentially what killed me. So if you could avoid that, thanks.”

There were a couple of quiet apologies and the sounds of the group moving away, chattering amongst themselves and beginning to pick up in volume and energy. There was already some light ribbing aimed at the new scribe,  _ “See? Nothing to be afraid of!”.  _

On one hand, Beetle felt a little annoyed. On the other, he felt a bit of amusement. It’s not like he had done it on purpose, but hopefully it would help to keep people who weren’t supposed to have access to the Hermetic Chamber well outside of it.

He also felt even more reluctant to  **appear** now, especially to his friends. What was it his mother had said once?

_ Better to remember the dead as they were when they were healthy and alive than to remember their corpse. _

_ \-------------------------------------------------------------------- _

Beetle just knew he’d be able to leave soon. Somehow he could just feel it. The ties that bound him to this room were starting to fray, though he still found himself  **returned** every time he attempted to go beyond the doorway.

Of all the places to die, he just had to manage the room with one door and no windows. 

The first thing he wanted to do when he got out was to go outside and see the sky again. Then, he'd try flying. He missed sledding, but it sounded like  **flyte** had all the speed and thrill of sledding and a much better view than the ice tunnels.

Add in the fact that he didn't have anything to fear from crashing into a wall and it sounded like a grand time.

\-----------------------------------

He wasn't sure what changed, but something did. And for the first time in a year and a day, Beetle stepped into the Hallway beyond the Hermetic Chamber.


End file.
